Last Friday marked the 11th anniversary of the premiere of Joss Whedon’s Firefly, the series Fox cancelled after the 15 episodes in 2002 couldn’t find a large enough audience (which just might have been because Fox kept changing which day of the week it aired so no one could find it). Fans were given a little bit of closure with 2005’s Serenity, but that hasn’t stopped rumors of a sequel as fans clamored for more and fell victim to devious hat-related lawsuits.

Now Dark Horse has announced a new series of Serenity comic books which will leave off where the Serenity movie ended. The following blockquote shouldn’t be a spoiler. It’s been eight damn years, so Netflix it already.

As the series begins, Mal and the crew are recouping from their recent strike against the sinister interplanetary government, The Alliance, in which they exposed government agencies as those responsible for the creation of the Reavers — the scourge of the universe. With River Tam in the co-pilot chair and a very pregnant Zoe reeling from the death of her husband, Wash, Mal is finding himself and his ship in greater danger than ever. [CBR]

The art will come from Georges Jeanty, a longtime collaborator with Joss Whedon and the artist behind the Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic book spin-off.

We’ll probably have to wait until New York Comic-Con next month for Dark Horse to announce who the writer will be and when Serenity hits newsstands. In the meantime, we already know we’ll get along with artist Georges Jeanty just fine:

When presented with a choice of facing down a nest of vampires or a frigate of marauding Reavers, Jeanty said he’d avoid the Reavers at all cost. “Why?” asked Jeanty. “Because they’ll rape you to death, eat your flesh and sew your skin into their clothing — and if you’re very lucky, they’ll do it in that order.” [CBR]

This guy gets it. I’ll bet his comic run will be awesome to look at until it’s cancelled way too soon.

The comics explaining Book’s backstory was terrible, and the other weren’t much better. So much of the show was built on the great chemistry among the cast that I don’t think Firefly will ever work as a comic. They should just leave it alone. Also, Wash is dead.